Quiz King of Fighters - Neo Geo / Neo Geo CD (1995)

Neo Geo CD Cover

Those familiar with the Capcom game Quiz and Dragons will know exactly what to expect from Quiz King of Fighters. Yuri has been kidnapped by someone evil, and only by battling through Quiz City and questioning everyone you find can you discover her whereabouts. Taking the role of one of six SNK characters (Terry, Mai, Haohmaru, Nakoruru, Ryo or Robert), players roll dice and move around a board, encountering some foe at each square. Instead of engaging in fighting, they'll simply quiz you. Answering enough questions right makes it possible to go on; answering wrong costs some health. There's a bit of variety, including a few strange mini-games (like comparing two pictures and picking out the differences) and some button-mashing marathons.

Some of the most amusing segments are the boss battles, where the character will execute various attacks depending on how quickly questions are answered. Each of these are accompanied by a cinema scene, which shows off the nicest graphics in the game. Otherwise, the portraits are all mish-mashes of art styles from Fatal Fury 2, Art of Fighting and Samurai Shodown, giving it a hasty, hodgepodge feeling. Obviously, most of the game will be pretty useless without knowledge of Japanese. Even then it requires a lot of obscure cultural knowledge (read up on your vintage anime!), but it is quite hilarious when characters like Lawrence Blood walk up to you and ask when Tokyo Disneyland was built. The odd sense of humor is really the only thing that makes Quiz King of Fighters worthwhile.

The King of Fighters Kyo - PlayStation (1998)

Cover

King of Fighters Kyo is an interesting game; it's technically an RPG, although it has more in common with a life- or dating sim than your typical Final Fantasy clone. Considering the rich storyline behind King of Fighters, it's really no surprise that they'd eventually make a game that focuses primarily on the story and characters, but the execution is somewhat lacking. Most of this is due to the crappy battle system. Imagine King of Fighters made turn-based, and you'll have a vague idea of how it all works out.

Each turn consists of up to three moves. One can move forward or backwards, guard, charge up the power meter, or execute one of numerous attacks. Once selected, the game then does a roll of the moves against the opponent's, depending on several factors, including speed, the distance between the characters, and the move selected. Winning causes Kyo to execute the attack, while losing simply does nothing. After all of the moves are done, the turn is over and attacks are selected again. This continues until either opponent is defeated.

The major problem is that it's nearly impossible to determine whether attacks will succeed or fail - there are plenty of factors, but the game never lets through what exactly they are. All the player can do is dodge (to increase speed) and memorize the distance of the different attacks, and hope they'll connect. Given the haphazard nature of the system, it's hard to make any real strategy, especially if one keeps failing moves (which also drains the power meter.) Furthermore, the whole system is slow and painfully uninteresting.

The only playable character in Story Mode is Kyo. Taking place in between KoF '96 and '97, the plot details Kyo's research into his family bloodlines and his connection to the Orochi power. Along the way, he trains to become more powerful, recruits allies for the tournament, and constantly fights against that annoying bastard Iori. Moving around is accomplished by clicking on areas of a map. The quest leads to explore areas of Tokyo and Esaka, as well as parts of America and Mexico as Kyo meets all of the usual King of Fighters cast. Each character who joins has a friendship affinity to Kyo, and only by selecting the right dialogue choices - and protecting them from Iori - will you be able to maintain your buddies' companionship. There are also several exclusive characters to King of Fighter Kyo:

Yuki Kushinada

Kyo's girlfriend. She and Shingo accompany Kyo on his adventures, although she ultimately doesn't do a whole lot. She does appear as a playable character in Gals Fighters for the Neo Geo Pocket Color.

Souji Kusanagi

Kyo's cousin. He's quite a bit older, with a family of his own, but at one time he almost fell under control of his rage. He's since sworn off fighting so he doesn't flip out of control.

Aoi Kusanagi

Souji's wife. Aoi mysteriously disappears and is found later emanating the same purple flames as Iori. She rides a motorcycle and is also pretty hot for being your cousin-in-law.

The Sendou Family

These three jokers constantly show up to challenge you to fights. Their names are, from left to right: Shota, Junko and Kyoji.

A vast majority of the game is spent listening to characters talk, as most of the dialogue is voiced. The artwork is a bit different from the fighting games, and while it's not bad, it does have a kind of amateurish doujin quality. All of the battles feature poorly animated sprites against a practically nonexistent background. Most of the music consists of various SNK themes played through the PlayStation's synth, which somehow sounds more artificial than the Neo Geo.

For those interested in the KoF storyline and familiar with Japanese, The King of Fighters Kyo is a cool way to learn more about the characters and their backgrounds, but ultimately it's just a lot of plot segments connected with some awful battle scenes.

The King of Fighters: Battle de Paradise - Neo Geo Pocket Color (2000)

Japanese Cover

Japanese Flyer

The King of Fighters: Battle De Paradise is SNK's take on Mario Party. It takes several characters from the King of Fighters universe and makes them controllable on a giant board game. Players go around the board collecting coins, and like a typical game of Chutes and Ladders, luck plays a big part in how they proceed. Some spaces reduce coins, others will send you back or forward a few spaces, and so on. Things get interesting with the mini-game spaces, in which one gets to compete against another character for as many coins as possible. Some of them feature amusing situations - in one, Chang or Choi has to be guided through a series of doors, but if the wrong one is picked, they'll end up getting captured by Jhun Hoon. Another reguires mashing buttons to escape from Rugal's exploding ship. Some are less interesting, like trying to pick out a character based on their shadow. In the end, few of them based on anything more than luck and/or jamming buttons as fast as possible.

To win one just has to get to the end. The coins you earn can be used at shops found on the board, to purchase cards that have varying effects (players start out with a hand of these as well). They can be used to steal coins or advance yourself a few spaces.

Following with the direction of the King of Fighters series at this time (around KoF '99), a King of Fighters character is chosen to be your "Striker," while one of four kids serves as the actual player avatar (Ai, Hatoko, Masamune, or Yuu G, each one starts the game with different cards.) The choice of character also cosmetically changes the reasoning behind progress in the game. A "lose a turn" space is represented by Kyo wasting time with his girlfriend, for example, whereas landing on the same space with Billy has him go off to buy medicine for his sister. There are also good and bad (called Justice and Dark) versions to choose from the available characters.

The King of Fighters: Battle de Paradise

Justice/Dark? Strikers? Here's the hook: The game wasn't supposed to be bought to enjoy it, but as a Japanese consumer, you would have bought it to level up these helper characters with coins and then upload them to King of Fighters '99: Evolution on the Dreamcast; that game featured these same characters as its extra Strikers (also with the ability to level them up.) The US version has the strikers and the power to level them up, but this link ability is completely removed, as Battle de Paradise never made it to America. There were also some strikers which required the link in Japan, Gai Tendo from Buriki-One and Syo Kirishima (a scrapped early design for Kyo Kusanagi.) In the US version of KoF '99, one can unlock them by simply amassing a playtime of fifty hours or more.

What good is Battle de Paradise at this day and age then? Very little. While it does have a ton of catchy music and mini-games that are homages to vintage SNK games (most notably Top Hunter and Iron Tank), the games are all extremely simple and depend much more on rapid button mashing and luck than on genuine skill. The boards are all based on SNK related environments (Krizalid's base in KoF'99, an Ikari Warriors type area, Neo Geo World) but are very bland overall. These reasons reduce the game to a curiosity at best.

The King of Fighters Online - Windows (2003)

An online game based on The King of Fighters, with its dozens of colorful characters and deep mythology for a fighting game, sounds great, at least on paper. So thought the Koreans, world leaders in MMOs, and made two attempts to adapt the series over the year. Kim Jaehoon's (the real-life son of the real-life Kim Kaphwan) UnoTechnology went as far as testing their version in an open beta starting April 2003, but it was already shut down in August the same year and then just disappeared. The game promised to keep an arcade-feel to the combat, while still incorporating all the standard MMO elements like levelups, item management and party functions. The only playable characters during the beta were Kyo, Athena, Leona and Kim Jaehoon (no surprise here, given who made the game), but Promo screenshots also showed Iori Yagami and Kula.

The King of Fighters Online (Dragonfly / Triple-A)

This is not to be confused with the other KoF Online game, which was first announced by Dragonfly in cooperation with SNKP in 2009. The game was to be developed as a sidescrolling brawler by a Korean studio called Triple-A, but due to differences between the involved parties, Dragonfly eventually pulled the rug from under their feet and internalized the development, scrapping the existing concept and starting again. The game is still kind of being worked on as of 2012, but it appears to be a low priority to Dragonfly, and there have been no big news since the initial screenshots and trailer video from 2009.